


you're on a different road (I'm in the milky way)

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: F/M, I don't want to tag petergwenmj and get people's hopes up, but it is heavily implied to be in the offing, set nebulously within early 616 spider-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 15:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17531252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: Gwen Stacy's never failed at anything in her life--but she's worried she might start.





	you're on a different road (I'm in the milky way)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about Gwen Stacy a lot lately.

“Let me take you out tonight,” Peter told her. He barely even pretended to be sneaky about slipping his hand under her dress, offering her his most charming, crooked grin as it curled possessively over her hip.

Gwen didn’t quite roll her eyes, in a Herculean feat of restraint, and flicked teasingly at his hand from the outside of her dress.

She was pretty sure he already knew what her answer was going to be; he just wanted to make sure she knew her options. He was so patient with her, in his obnoxious Peter way--probably because he was just as busy, between classes and his non-stop pursuit of the next photo he could sell to the  _Bugle_.

“Sorry, lover,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his lips as she settled her hands on those broad, warm shoulders. She may have let him tug her aside into an empty classroom and make her late-to-be-early to her next class, but she just didn’t have the time for more than a scandalous mid-morning make out session. “I’ve got a lab report due Monday.”

“Monday, she says!” Peter complained, all sarcasm and wild gestures with his free hand--the other didn’t leave her hip, keeping her against him. “Three whole days away and we can’t do one measly little dinner!”

“One measly little dinner, he says,” she drawled back, treating him to a patented Gwen Stacy eye roll. “One measly little dinner--” her knuckles trailed down the soft cotton of his polo-- “followed by what?” She mockingly tapped the buckle of his belt with one pale blue nail. “His measly little--”

“Hey now.”

“ _Apartment_.” She snickered at the disgruntled look on his face, darting up to kiss his cheek even as she brushed his hands away. “Things to do, places to be. I’ll call you on Sunday if I get done in time for a movie.”

Peter chucked her lightly under the chin, joking, “Promises, promises,” and Gwen blew him a kiss as she strode out the door.

She wouldn’t be leaving campus until the evening, but she could already see her weekend in her mind’s eye:

Steady, diligent progress on her report, and then in the morning she’d share an early breakfast with her father. Lather, rinse, repeat. Or... maybe not  _repeat_. Maybe she’d invite Peter over around noon on Sunday, sacrifice efficiency in exchange for his hand on her thigh while she worked. It was certainly a thought.

Gwen smiled, ducking her head to hide her smile as she slipped into class, barely on time. She was flying high all that afternoon, through class and productive hours in the lab--she always was, after ten minutes with Peter. He made her feel like she was on top of the world.

Then she ran into her mentor in the hallway, and Gwen was reminded that- for all its strengths- Empire State University was very much not the top of the world.

“Gwen!” Professor Warren’s smile was a little too bright, as always, and he waved at her insistently. “Got a minute? We can go ahead and get our next meeting out of the way.”

She glanced, longingly, down the hall at the vending machine and the frappuccino she’d had her sights set on, but she let him usher her over. “Hey, professor. Our meetings are normally on Mondays...”

And in his office, not the middle of the hallway, and Gwen didn’t normally have an impending caffeine headache after several hours hunched over a microscope. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her dress, refusing to rub at her temples.

Stacy’s didn’t show weakness.

“I was actually hoping we could start meeting twice a week.” Warren clapped her on the shoulder with a warm smile. “Time to start ratcheting up the pressure, my dear; I’m really going to be putting you to work this semester.”

Gwen’s face did something sharp and disbelieving; she couldn’t help it. “We’re two weeks in, and I’ve already got a massive lab report due,” she said, as neutrally as she could manage. “I barely had time for Peter or my extracurriculars  _last_  semester, when I was taking fewer credit hours--”

“I think the key word there is ‘extracurriculars’; they’re your choices, Gwen,” he said, barely sounding apologetic. “You asked to be treated like one of my grad students despite being an undergrad, Gwen. That means research, research, and more research.”

“Of course, Professor,” Gwen said, forcing herself to smile. “I understand.”

 

* * *

 

She flung open the door to Peter and Harry’s apartment, slamming her textbooks onto their counter as she blindly kicked off her ankle boots. “You,” she snarled, pointing an accusatory finger at Peter.

He threw his hands up, those eyebrows of his innocently rising. There was a half-assembled sandwich on the counter in front of him. “Me?”

She stormed over to him, dragging him down by the buttons of his polo, eyes wild as she hissed, “You’re taking me out tonight.”

“Tell me more, tell me more,” Mary Jane drawled.

Gwen hadn’t even noticed her--or Harry, she realized, glancing over at the couch. He was playing a videogame, tongue poked out between his teeth, and two model-long legs were crossed over his lap as MJ lounged effortlessly back against the arm of the couch.

“You weren’t supposed to miss that jump, I think,” she said dryly, and Harry made a distressed noise, thumbs flying over his controller. Over her shoulder, she added, “Is this a group thing, Gwendy?”

She ran her tongue over her teeth, scrunching up her nose as she considered the thought. Gwen hadn’t had much of a plan in mind, except for drowning herself in an irresponsible night of debauchery with Peter as a great big “fuck you” to Professor Miles “Define ‘Social Life’” Warren. And who was better for bright, loud, and distracting than the one woman party over there on the couch?

She nodded decisively. “It’s a group thing.”

“Mm.” Mary Jane smiled, wide and slow like a cat eyeing the nearest canary. “Kinky.”

Gwen laughed, a little high and a little hysterical, and thumped her forehead onto Peter’s shoulder. Those strong, strong arms curled around her and pulled her close, his crooked nose pressing into her hair as he asked, quietly, “What happened, honey?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she mumbled back.

Peter snorted. “Seems like it matters. Six hours ago you were too busy to even have dinner with me, and now you’re all ‘Hurricane Gwen’--”

“Just shut up and hold me, Parker.”

“Don’t make out in my kitchen,” Harry ordered, and Gwen flipped him off even though he wasn’t looking. (In all fairness to Harry, he’d walked in on her and Peter... more times than she really wanted to think about.) “Where are we going?”

“Dancing,” Gwen said immediately.

She turned her cheek to Peter’s shoulder so she could watch Mary Jane--there were calculations running through those green eyes of hers, pale throat exposed as she tilted her chin up thoughtfully. “Club preferences?”

“Not the place we went last time,” Peter said firmly, and Gwen pulled a face, making a low noise of agreement.

“But that bartender was so cute!” Harry protested, finally pausing his game so he could turn an accusatory glare on the two of them.

“Harry,” Gwen said flatly. Sometimes it was hard to remember how smart these boys were, when they were both so dumb. She pulled away from Peter, one hand set on her hip and the other flitting high and sarcastic through the air. “Are you forgetting the part where she turned out to be a literal soul sucking demon?”

Mary Jane sighed dreamily, draping herself backwards over the arm of the couch. “At least I got to be scooped up in Spider-Man’s hunky, manly arms _._ ”

Peter snickered. “So did Harry.”

Harry sniffed, his slender arms crossing over his chest as he slouched back into the couch. “You’re just jealous, Parker. Always too busy chasing a picture to get hit on by sexy supervillainesses.”

“Who’s jealous, lover boy?” Mary Jane laughed, prodding his thigh with the ball of one foot. “Pete’s got Gwendy. What else does he need?”

“What else indeed?” Peter asked teasingly, leaning down to wrap his arms around her waist, nosing at the soft skin behind the lobe of her ear. His voice quiet and husky, he asked, “What are you going to wear tonight?”

Exasperation seeped down into the depths of Gwen’s very soul.

“You’re such a boy,” she groaned, letting herself flop bonelessly into Peter’s grip. He took her weight easily, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “When I’m doing my PhD at UC Berkeley, we’re going to have daily phone sex, aren’t we?”

“You said it, not me.”

She ignored him, dropping her voice mockingly. “‘Are you wearing any underwear?’” Gwen threw her hands up, an uncoordinated flail that came quite close to smacking her obnoxious boyfriend in the face. “Peter! It may be eight PM for you, but I’m literally still in the lab! You’re on speaker with me and five of my closest colleagues!”

She paused, then added smugly, “And no, no I am not.”

Harry howled with laughter, flinging his arm over his eyes.  “Gwen, you’re a  _legend_.“

She smiled--not her usual, that sharp and icy smile that made men and women alike quake in their boots, but a soft one, one that came along with her heart throbbing in her chest. Harry worried her, sometimes; drawing out his laughter was always a victory.

“You should be nicer to me. I could drop you,” Peter told her, jostling her threateningly.

“You’d never drop me,” she said confidently.

Her fingers were curled around Peter’s wrist, the pad of her thumb tracing lightly over tender skin. She reached up with her other hand, blindly patting at his cheek--she caught part of his mouth, and he kissed at the heel of her palm.

Harry elaborately mimed gagging, and Gwen mouthed back, “Jealous.”

Out of nowhere, Mary Jane gasped.

She flung herself off of the couch and raced towards the kitchen, falling dramatically to her knees and skidding across the hardwood to come to a stop at Gwen’s feet.

“Let me pick out your outfit for tonight,” she begged, hands clasped below her chin. Her red hair was escaping her bun in wisps, framing her freckled face and wild green eyes like ribbons of fire. “I’ve got a dress that was  _made_  for you, Ms. Stacy.”

Gwen frowned, pulling one knee up slightly in a half-hearted attempt to escape. “Peter, carry me away from the crazy,” she ordered.

MJ’s hand shot forward through Gwen’s legs to seize Peter by the knee of his jeans, and she growled, she actually  _growled_. “Don’t you move a fucking muscle, Parker.”

“Sweetheart, I’m scared,” Peter stage whispered, his laughter almost breaking through.

Gwen curled her lip in disgust. Useless, he was useless to her.

Mary Jane met Gwen’s eyes once more. “Gwendy,” she said insistently, releasing Peter’s jeans to run her hands soothingly over Gwen’s bare calves. “Your personal style is phenomenal, don’t get me wrong, but I can take cool, and collected, and stylish,” her head tilted with each word, her eyes closed and voice fluttering into a lower register with the weight of her convictions, “and I can tear you apart and build you back up, and I will make you so  _goddamn sexy_  that your hunky, healthy boyfriend will have a heart attack on the spot.”

Gwen narrowed her eyes.

Mary Jane raised an eyebrow.

“I mean,” Harry said slowly. Gwen’s eyes flicked up, betrayal flooding thorugh her veins, to find his hands steepled thoughtfully beneath his chin.

Peter’s voice in her ear was all nonchalance as he added, “I certainly wouldn’t complain.”

Gwen clapped her hand over her eyes, groaning deeply. “Fine, whatever.” Mary Jane cheered, fist pumping, and Gwen waved a finger in her face, voice sharp as she continued, “But I’m not leaving this apartment, Watson. You’re bringing that massive wardrobe to me.”

 

* * *

 

It was a warm night for January in New York City, and Peter’s hand blazed against the small of her back.

He couldn’t stop touching her, even more than he usually couldn’t stop touching her. Who knew an edgy little black dress with a smoky eye and messy hair style could have such a large effect? Mary Jane Watson, apparently.

Gwen looked over at her, in that stylish jumpsuit and towering heels, and MJ winked, magicking a flask out of the folds of her deep, scooping neckline.

“Marry me,” Harry told her, voice urgent in the cool night air.

She smiled, sharp and sweet all at once as she patted Harry lightly on the cheek. “Honey, you couldn’t handle me.” Her green eyes glittered with a challenge, flicking away from Harry. “Need something to keep you warm in the winter, Gwendolyne?”

_One of these days you’re going to learn to turn down a dare, Gwen_ , she thought ruefully, snagging the flask out from between Mary Jane’s fingertips. “Not that I need it to ‘keep me warm’,” she added, complete with sarcastic air quotes.

Mary Jane looked at Peter.

Peter grinned and wiggled his eyebrows.

She snorted, nodding her head. “Right.”

“Yeah, sure.” Gwen took a long, long drink of vodka and leaned in conspiratorially, beckoning Mary Jane and Harry closer as she stage whispered, “I have the Human Torch on speed dial.”

Peter mimed stabbing himself in the heart. “You wound me, sweetheart, you know that? Of all the supermen in all the gin joints in all the towns to fake leave me for, and you had to pick the flamebrain.”

Gwen wiped her lips on the back of her hand and passed Harry the flask. “Who said I was leaving you?” she teased, voice low as she tugged lightly at his belt loop, enjoying the heat in his eyes as he looked down at her. “You’re welcome to join us.”

Mary Jane glanced between them consideringly. “That’s a good point, Har. Gwendy and Pete could handle me--” she held up a finger, her eyes glittering with amusement-- “but only together.”

Gwen could already feel the vodka curling through her veins, her cheeks heating up and her limbs loosening. “That a challenge, lover girl?” she demanded.

“That an  _offer_?” Peter added, shifting his arm to hang heavy over Gwen’s shoulders, his smile crooked and warm.

“Ugh, stop flirting,” Harry ordered. He grabbed Gwen’s hand, spinning her out of Peter’s grasp and dipping her towards the dirty concrete.  “I thought we were here to dance, Stacy!”

Ever since she’d known him- and she’d known him first, before Peter and Mary Jane and dear Flash, away overseas- Harry had always looked just shy of anxious, long and thin and pale, with too much product in his hair. But right now, that was all burned away by the force of his smile and the excited glitter in his eye.

Gwen hooked her leg around his hip, a smile stealing slowly across her face as she listened to Peter’s indignant squawking and Mary Jane’s teasing drawl. Her heart felt full to bursting--God, she loved these people.

She reached up, pinching one sharp cheekbone. “Take me away, Osborn.”

“Like we were born to it,” Harry agreed fervently, and- fine-boned hand in Gwen’s- he cut to the front of the line, ignoring the complaining masses as he flashed his black AmEx and his most arrogant smile. The bouncer glanced between them, his mouth an impassive line, and then he stepped aside to let them through.

Norman Osborn wasn’t good for much, but at least there was this.

“Redhead and eyebrows are with us, too,” Harry told him, “but make them think we’re abandoning them completely before you let them through, huh? Three minutes should do it.”

Gwen cackled, squeezing his hand as she threw Mary Jane and Peter a teasing wave over her shoulder. “I knew there was a reason we were friends.”  .

The club, when they stepped inside, was just what Gwen had been looking for--Mary Jane and her encyclopedic knowledge of New York night life to the rescue, yet again. The upper tier was a 360 degree blacony full of tables and seating, illuminated with a dark, moody sort of lighting; below, the huge dance floor was an amorphous world of pulsing lights and writhing bodies, its speakers cleverly placed to keep the music from overpowering the upper level.

Still, the floor vibrated beneath her feet.

The music seemed to reach down inside her, squeezing her heart until it raced in time, and she was breathless enough to let Harry drag her down the wide, drunk-people-friendly stairs to the lower bowl.

“What’s the play, Har?” she yelled, standing on tiptoes to reach his ear. “Do you want--”

“To quote a song so popular that even Peter would know it,” he said, rolling his eyes, “shut up and dance with me, Stacy.”

And that was that.

Gwen lost herself in the music, in lyrics screamed at the top of her lungs and jumping around making a fool of herself, in the shape of Harry’s grin and the awkward flail of his limbs--and later, when Peter and MJ found them, she lost herself in Peter’s hands on her hips and the sparkle in Mary Jane’s eyes, in the feeling of three of her favorite people in the world laughing freely on every side of her.

Needless to say, Mary Jane’s flask was simply the opening salvo of the night.

“I love you,” Gwen told Peter, in the brief silence between two songs. She was almost out of breath, her arms weighty with tipsiness, and her hairspray was starting to fail her, sweaty wisps of blonde curling around her face.

He was peering at the bottom of his shoe with a disgusted expression.

“You dragged me to this club, so you better,” he said, distractedly, and Gwen huffed. Peter really was an idiot.

“I’m gonna go find MJ; you keep an eye on lightweight over there,” she yelled over the opening chords of the new song, gesturing at Harry where he was making out with a girl who looked a lot more...  _alternative_  than his usual type, and pushed through the crowd towards the stairs.

Mary Jane was easy to find once Gwen had white knuckled the railing the make her way up a level; her red hair shone like a roadside flare, even in the almost nonexistent lighting of the club, and she was holding court among a gaggle of handsome suitors, both straight and butch, her smile bright and her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Gwen wandered towards them, hands tucked under her arms. She was woman enough to admit she’d always envied that easy charm, and drunk enough to admit she’d always wondered if that vibrant red was natural. Mary Jane had so many freckles, she thought wistfully. It almost had to be; those traits were genetically linked.

“Gwendy!” Mary Jane called, her face lighting up as she spotted her--and then she  _looked_  at her, and she immediately shooed off her suitors. She didn’t have a sharp tongue, not the way Gwen did, but whatever she said was effective enough to clear the booth down to just the two of them by the time Gwen slipped in across from her.

“Where’s the Boy Wonder?” she asked, her voice low and concerned.

Gwen snorted, folding her arms on the tabletop and slumping down to rest her cheek on them. “Complaining to the management about the puke on his shoes, probably,” she said sullenly.

Fingers combed through her hair, MJ’s perfectly manicured nails scraping lightly over her scalp.

She should have known she’d end up here, laid low by one drink too many, everything she’d been avoiding roiling its way through her chest. She should have known because this always happened--she thought she’d have fun, and then she didn’t. It was never like that  _Footloose_  remake.

Gwen Stacy, she decided, was not a woman made for clubbing--which was good, since she wasn’t going to have time for it anyway. She didn’t even have time for  _this_ , honestly.

She squeezed her eyes shut, holding her breath against the sob that wanted to shake her thin shoulders. There was just too much, there was  _so much_ ,  _how could she do it all and still have time to sleep, time to see Peter, time to spend with her dad--_

“Hey, woah.” Mary Jane whistled, sharp and high, and it cut through Gwen’s spiral. “Walk me through whatever’s going on in that blonde skull of yours, tiger. Take it one step at a time and use enough little baby words for a dummy like me to understand, huh?”

“Just in the middle of a minor breakdown,” Gwen told her thickly. “I’ll get over it.”

“Then do it already.”

Gwen reared up, shooting her a disgusted look, and Mary Jane- her face devoid of sympathy- reached out and flicked her painfully on the forehead. “If you want me to be supportive,” she said flatly, “you have to actually explain what’s wrong.”

In the morning, Gwen would be embarrassed by the ugly red flush that came over her cheeks, the sharp vitriol in her voice as she snapped, “You’re such a--”

“ _Gwendy_. Sweetheart.” Mary Jane’s fingers curled around her chin, dragging her gaze to meet those warm, green eyes, so full of love and affection it felt like a blow the gut. Gwen made a wounded noise.

“Talk to me,” Mary Jane said softly.

To Gwen’s eternal embarrassment, tears welled up as if on cue.  “I can’t do it,” she sobbed. “I can’t  _do it_ \--He wants me to double down on my research, as if I'm not already overloaded, and I’ve never failed  _anything_  before, in my  _entire life_ , and I’m going to fail  _everything_ and I--”

Gwen raised one hand, pressing almost painfully over her mouth as she curled in on herself, trying to get back under control. God, she was such an idiot.

“Oh, honey.” Mary Jane leaned across the table, gathering Gwen up in a wiry-armed hug. “Can you cut anything out? Drop a class, quit the lab?”

Gwen shook her head wordlessly. She needed Warren’s recommendation letter for grad school, and all of her classes were coreqs for each other or prereqs for things she needed down the line. Besides, she  _loved_  her research, and she  _loved_  her classes, and that was just going to make it  _all the worse_  when she crashed and burned.

“Okay.” Mary Jane sat back in her seat, her hands sliding to Gwen’s cheeks. She smoothed away a tear with one thumb, a determined glint in her eye. “Doesn’t matter. You’re not going to fail,” she declared.

Hysterical laughter bubbled up in Gwen’s chest. “You can’t possibly--”

“I so can possibly know that, because you’re Gwen Stacy--” she pointed at Gwen-- “and I’m Mary Jane Watson--” she pointed at herself-- “and the two dumbasses currently dithering around behind that column because they don’t know what to do with a crying drunk girl--” she pointed at the boys-- “those are Peter Parker and Harry Osborn.”

She leaned her forehead against Gwen’s, cradling her cheek with one hand, and her voice was soft as she added, “Mary Janes and Peters and Harrys? They love their Gwendolynes. Lover girl, that means you aren’t in this alone.”

_Oh_.

Her chest jumped with a sob she refused to let go of. “Let’s go home,” Gwen suggested, her voice hoarse.

Mary Jane pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before rising to her feet. “There’s a reason they made you the brains of this outfit, Gwendy.” She hooked her arm through Gwen’s, a steady, mostly-sober guide as they wormed their way towards the exit. “Seems like time for you to head to bed: numerous fluffy pillows required, hunky chem majors optional.”

Gwen managed to laugh, letting her head fall sideways onto Mary Jane’s shoulder. It wasn’t comfortable, with the uneven rise and fall of their stride, but it was comfort _ing_. “Thank you, Mary,” she said, too quietly for her knight in silk chiffon to even hear her.

“Here you are,” Mary Jane declared, pulling them to a stop next to Peter and Harry and giving Gwen a small nudge towards her boyfriend.  “One semi-emotionally-stable ice queen for you to feel up on the ride home.”

“Just another reason for me not to split a cab with Mr. Puke Shoes,” Harry said dryly.

“You’re one to talk; your breath smells like that chick’s cigarettes and a jager bomb,” Peter fired back. His arms curled around her, warm and strong and solid, and Gwen let herself lean into him for one long, long moment. What would she ever do without him? Spend an annoying amount of time on blind double dates with Harry, probably.

“I love you,” he told her, voice threaded with guilt and his grip tightening briefly. “Next time I’m dumb enough not to say that, you go ahead and tattle on me to Aunt May, huh?”

That was sweet; too bad he was such an idiot.

Gwen wriggled out of his grip to sock him in the shoulder, drunkenly hard, and sniffed imperiously. “Like I was crying about my boyfriend not telling me he loved me,” she scoffed, leading the march out of the club. “Full of yourself much, Parker?”

Harry laughed. “I love it when she puts you in your place.”

“I can’t win,” Peter complained. “Mary Jane, I cannot--I  _cannot win_.”

“You keep telling yourself that, lover boy,” she drawled back. “I don’t know what else to call it, when you’ve got friends like us.”


End file.
